minerva1961 Reviews

Lucifer (2016–2021)

The best pilot out at the moment

[9/10 · 14 August 2015]

The kids and I watched this last night, nothing scary, pretty much PG and compared to all the other pilots out at the moment this was very good and has the most potential. We liked Tom Ellis as Lucifer, there was humour and subtle special effects as well as in your face special effects.

The plot was somewhat lightweight but as an opener and for introducing the cast it was good enough, will be interested to see the overall story arc as it develops.

As usual the lead actor has a British accent (though Tom was raised in Wales so should have a Welsh accent), it does work, Lucifer having an English accent and being quite classy - he hates rap but loves the Blues, a man of good tastes!

I suspect the woman are going to like this even more as Tom Ellis is in constant flirt mode throughout the episode but we three blokes gave this a thumbs up and would like to see more!

Utopia (I) (2013– )

Holy Crap! Shockingly Good!

[10/10 · 25 July 2013]

My Goodness, what a surprise!, I wasn't expecting that! Just watched episode one and right from the start it sets the tone, the two thugs in the store...unbelievably menacing...the menacing is even more scary than the actual violence, you can see why this was transmitted at 10pm.. Phew!

Slight Spoiler Alert The eye scene was painful to watch (excuse the pun) but when he shot the gun I actually whooped and cheered! And how they got the little kid to act like that, in fact the casting has been inspired, not heartthrobs but 'normal' people caught up in a web of lies and horror.

This feels like it should be on the Sundance channel it's like Lost but for the more thoughtful audience, I shall definitely be watching the rest of the series!

Odd Thomas (2013)

MUCH better than I expected!

[8/10 · 28 June 2013]

Watched this with my 16 and 14 yr old sons last night and we all throughly enjoyed it, the 14yr old hid behind a pillow for quite a lot but really it was all standard 'turns around and ghost inches from your face' fare, the CGI was not budget - was really good actually and lots of it. The story was really engaging, acting was great from Odd and Stormy and great chemistry between them, you felt like they really were lovers. Nice plot twists, it's not going to be a blockbuster and win academy awards, almost as many plot holes as World World Z but it was much better than I expected, very enjoyable, no dull moments and this will be joining my DVD collection when it comes out for sure. The ending was very good...

It's pretty obvious there's a telly series (or string of follow-up movies) wanting to be made :-)

Iron Man Three (2013)

Peaked at The Avengers

[2/10 · 29 April 2013]

Poor Robert Downey Jr, decent actors shouldn't have to put up with rubbish scripts like this, this was a major disappointment, in years to come people will look back and know for sure that Iron Man peaked at The Avengers. This was trash, Guy Pearce's baddie was laughable, he should have refused the role but even worse was Ben Kingsley doing the Mandarin, how the mighty have fallen, from Oscar Gandi to this trash...it was embarrassing watching it.

My 14yr old gave it an 8/10 but the 16yr old gave it a generous 4, I give it a 2 but wow, what a huge disappointment, all the best bits are in the trailer.

Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

Made this old cynic cry tears, tears of joy.

[10/10 · 10 February 2013]

A friend told me about his documentary and told me I HAVE TO WATCH IT... now I'm telling everyone, you HAVE TO WATCH IT...it's one of those movies that makes me glad to be alive...

If some script writer had submitted this story to Hollywood he would been laughed out of the town for it being too unbelievable but it just shows you that sometimes reality is even more amazing than Hollywood can dream up..

You will already have read the story about becoming well known in South Africa, without giving anything away I asked my South African work colleague if he knew about an American musician called Rodriguez, he said OF COURSE1 and then he said to me Why, don't you, doesn't everybody? and I told him I'd never heard of him and he was amazed, he said he was a folk hero in SA and was shocked that no-one else in the office had heard about Rodriguez, he couldn't understand it, everyone of his generation had that album and he assumed it was famous world wide - and that Rodriguez was dead.. so I pointed him towards this video (thank you Love Film), he went home and watched it and next day was emailing and Facebooking all his London SA friends. Rodriguez is playing in London this summer, from what I can tell every single friend is going to see Rodriguez and it's no wonder, watch this documentary and you will go along too.

It's easily the most amazing documentary I will watch this year... even this decade.

Lincoln (2012)

Unbelievably awful waste of time and money

[1/10 · 24 January 2013]

Spoiler Alert - specific spoilers in here.

This is the most ridiculous movie I've watched in a long time. A wasted effort.

I understand this is not an action movie - so why start with a war scene straight out of Saving Private Ryan, play that for ten minutes and then spend the rest of the movie exploring the political machinations of Washington and trying to get around 20 votes to pass slaving reforms. Spoiler alert, it was passed. Oh and right at the start the two black soldiers were able to quote a previous Lincoln speech word perfect, thanks Mr Spielberg, completely believable.. I'm sure that really happened.

Daniel Day Lewis spends WAY too much time talking to the floor, there's absolutely and completely no passion from him, he wanders off into little stories that have little relevance to the topic and at one point even one of the senators buggers off because he can't be arsed listening to yet another boring story.

His son wants to join the Army and Lincoln does his level best to stop him, even taking him to a hospital where he witnesses cartloads of limbs being thrown into a pit but STILL the son signs up BUT Mrs Lincoln completely illogically spends a entire scene berating Lincoln for letting their son sign up - that scene was just put in there so she could show her acting chops, it lost all of it's dramatic effect because Lincoln DID try everything in his power to stop his son signing up, no wonder he spends the entire time looking down and talking to the floor, it's because he gets blamed for everything..

The amendment gets passed (hurrah!) but the reasons for each senator changing from a no to a yes isn't fully explored, it seems almost random, THEN it gets REALLY disjointed and amateurish - Lincoln gets shot, Spielberg spends A LOT of time showing Lincoln leaving the house for the last time and next scene it's some guy in the theater shouting the Presidents been shot, next scene its a doctor declaring him dead at home and then some fantasy sequence with Lincoln giving what I can only imagine is meant to be a soaring speech to a large crowd but it was the dullest speech in the whole movie and should have been moved to DVD extras.

If it's not a Lincoln bio-op then why do the shooting, it was meant to be about the 13th Amendment but why add 30 minutes extra about the assassination. This movie was a wasted opportunity, a confused mess which doesn't know what it wants to be, and just because DDL is in it and it's about abolishing slavery everyone is applauding it but even 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' was better than this pile of dog pooh and that's saying something!

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Must read the book first!

[8/10 · 5 January 2013]

If you haven't read the book then you are going to find this movie challenging. It's a huge book and they have tried to shoe-horn it into 2hrs 45 minutes, can you imagine The Lord of the Rings in a short movie...it's kind'a ironic because The Hobbit is a very short novel and Hollywood has stretched it out to three movies, the first one being ohh look 2hrs 45 minutes... doh! This movie needs to be seen on a big screen...it's a big screen movie - or sit very close to your telly, the make-up in particular is wow... distracting even but if you have read the book then there's two major differences; (a) The time-line in the book goes from past to future and then back to the past, it's a Christmas tree shaped time-line...in the movie it switches very rapidly and all over the place...it seems that in the first ?20 minutes it changes almost every two minutes...that will VERY much confuse the viewer..

(b) They have skimmed the story...so so much is missing, I was almost outraged at how much was skipped...the book goes into so much detail but the movie has dropped so much of the content that gives meaning to the scenes...

However, having said that I loved loved loved this movie, it works on so many levels and is so thought provoking, I just can't wait until they do it properly, the way it deserves, in a three movie deal.

Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)

Hilarious - but has ruined The Walking Dead for me!

[9/10 · 23 October 2012]

OMG my boys and I watched this last night and it was hilarious, totally unexpected but so freaking funny, it was pretty gory and the very first bit of gore had this old geezer grossed out but then turned into standard zombie blood fest. I thought yet another crap zombie movie but this was different, there are parts in this movie when I had tears of laughter rolling down my face - two scenes in particular had me laughing out loud...so unexpected... it's not going to win any awards (except maybe comedy of the year!) but it's just so funny, however if you love The Walking Dead then don't watch this because it will spoil that series forever, you will never see a zombie in the same light again! So freaking funny!

The old geezers with their cursing are marvellous - grey beards rule... and how the hell did they get Honor Blackman and Richard Briers to star in this. Do go to see it, it's very very British humour and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Looper (2012)

More depth than I was expecting

[10/10 · 30 September 2012]

I thought this was going to be a run of the mill Bruce Willis lots of explosions movie and of course there were lots of explosions BUT the film changes from what you expect into something much deeper, about half way through you realise the trailer hasn't done this movie justice, some parts of it I was actually shocked at but I can't tell you why without spoiling the movie.. It's not the usual good guy/bad guy and time travel fare, it's much deeper than that and explores the issues in novel and sometimes shocking ways but the last 30 minutes of the movie blew me away...totally unexpected... I enjoyed this movie very much and it left me thinking thinking thinking afterwards.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Stunned.

[10/10 · 14 July 2012]

It's been quite a few years since I sat in a cinema and didn't move until the very last note of the closing credit music was played. I think the last time was The Hours and I have to say I was completely floored by this movie, I was dragged along not knowing what to expect and I was riveted to the screen for two hours. I will definitely be going back to see this masterpiece again.

My only slight concern was the 'hand on chest' moment, I felt uncomfortable about that and didn't think it was necessary but that's a personal opinion. The rest of the movie just blew me away, famous actor after famous actor kept appear on the screen and there where some genuinely LOL moments (usually involving extreme weather!).

I have no idea who Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola are but they both deserve a huge pat on the back for writing this and Anderson for directing it. It was impossible to know how this movie was going to twist and turn, there were just so many unexpected surprises but the biggest surprise was just how good this movie is. Go see it and measure all other movies against this one from now on.

Johnny English Reborn (2011)

King of Slapstick 2011

[7/10 · 12 September 2011]

Took my two kids, 14 and 12 to see this at a free preview in Wimbledon (had to fill in a form afterwards) and honestly, both boys nearly fell off their seats laughing, and I have to be honest and admit to laughing to quite a few bits as well, it all comes down to Rowan Atkinson who seems to have cornered the Slapstick market, there are LOTS of visual gags, the trailer doesn't do the movie justice and there are lots of set pieces, it certainly isn't going to win any Oscars but the last scene had the whole cinema in near hysterics laughing - the disjointed body bit must have been very difficult to act but he pulled it off splendidly, well worth going to see on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the kids will thank you :)

Thor (2011)

Best Marvel movie since first Ironman

[10/10 · 4 May 2011]

My 12 and 14 yr old sons (and this 50 year old geezer!) loved this movie, much better than I was expecting, it had almost everything you could ask for it in it; action +++, heroic struggles, redemption, the very obvious baddies, the occasional twists, good looking woman, good looking men, lots and lots of explosions, big set pieces, unexpected humour, giant killer robots and references to the Avengers, what else could any red blooded male ask for - except maybe a light sabre or two, it was fun, is NEVER going to win any Oscars or awards for acting or direction but if this was Kenneth Branagh's first Marvel directing job then he did an excellent job of it, go see it on a big screen, we saw it in 2D and not 3D and THOROUGHLY enjoyed it, the kids want to go again and am tempted, best Marvel movie since first Ironman !

The Green Hornet (2011)

Awful... shudders minus 10

[1/10 · 19 January 2011]

Can I give it a minus numer? Really really really truly awfully bad, dire... I sat through the entire movie hoping it would get better, the lead actor annoyed me immensely, irritating in the extreme, the story terrible, a criminal mastermind worried about his suit, a sidekick that kicks-ass and makes kick-ass cars and coffee and plays the piano - he should have been the star... and the script made the cringe, not even B movie standards, a budget $90m wasted, an obscene waste of money, easily going to be the worse movie of the year and it's on the 19th of January, give your cash to charity, give you money to the homeless but whatever you do, don't go and waste two hours of your life sitting through that garbage, I feel insulted, after 127hrs (budget $18m)and The Kings Speech (budget $15m) I thought Hollywood was starting to grow up but this ...yuckkk ...shudders... unbelievably awful.

The Kingdom (2007)

One of the most powerful movies I have ever watched.

[10/10 · 6 January 2008]

I've given this movie a 10 rating - not because it is "excellent" but because it is so intense, as someone who has lived through the troubles in Ireland and experienced terrorism first hand I have to say that I was shocked at the realism of this movie, I thought Bourne three was intense but this takes it to a new level and I think it is because it is so real and here and now. The third part of this movie I had to pause and come back to as it was just 'too real'..

There are comments about the acting, the music and even the camera work here - couldn't even begin to pass comment on any of those as the story was so intense, this is not your average action gung-ho movie, this is real life and one of the most powerful movies I have ever watched, my thanks and hats off to EVERYONE involved in this movie.

Lady in the Water (2006)

Adult Fairytale, loved it..'would buy from again!'

[10/10 · 18 August 2006]

I went to see this movie thinking it would be the usual slash and hack but it was completely different from what I expected, I'm not sure if the 18-30 crowd are going to get it but I'm of older vintage and I loved it, the story and the acting were very good, and the way things changed all the time, you think you have it all figured out but nope, all the time your going 'but I thought..' and the buildup to the end, this is from the same guy that wrote the 6th sense and it is easily on equal power as that movie, the more I watched 6th sense the more hooked I became (and less scared!) and the same with this movie...if you want to show your partner that you have slightly more depth than Miami Vice then go see this movie, you won't regret it.